Need advice on impulsive habits.

TW: Checking I have a huge problem with checking. When I’m triggered by something, I tend to always grab my phone and start researching and spiraling for hours on end about that one thing. Usually it will feed into other things I worry about, and the cycle repeats. For example, I’m awake now because I’ve been up for the last 3 hours being paranoid about a Quora and Reddit post I made a while ago asking for advice. Constantly fearing that people sharing them are making fun of me, worrying about the comments and dislikes. I also tend to get in my head about rude comments. I made a lot of spelling mistakes in my Quora post, and people were coming at me kind of rude because of it, and it has me feeling extremely self-conscious, worrying that other people will find out it’s me and make fun of me. Anyone have any advice on how to stop checking so much and to learn to sit with uncertainty?

OCD newbies

sage🌱

Date posted: 2d

Hey, I feel so seen. I used to write on Reddit but I understand that it was just a compulsion and I was searching reassurance. I’m sorry that you are going through this. We made mistakes but remember mistakes are in the past and right now we can only learn from them and become a better person!

ainn

Date posted: Yesterday

@sage🌱 Thank you for your support! I hope that you’re getting better at avoiding those compulsions! I’m not someone who’s ever really written on Reddit, just kind of scrolled. I only made those posts at the beginning of when I felt my OCD started getting worse, so I felt it was a good way to get advice, but now I see it was super unhealthy for me. And yes youre totally right, I get into my head a lot about mistakes, but it’s always good to remind ourselves that humans make mistakes, and to leave the past where it was! :)

HopefulHuman

Date posted: 2d

I had a similar kind of compulsion which i call a research compulsion which involved alot of googling and visiting specific websites. One way i found to beat it was to install apps on my phone that would block a website and not let me unblock the website or the app until a certain amount of time passed or without a password, which id randomise and then use a service to email it to myself in the future.

zgeezoh

Date posted: 2d

@HopefulHuman Which app?

HopefulHuman

Date posted: Yesterday

@zgeezoh Blocker x and appblock are ones ive used

ainn

Date posted: Yesterday

@HopefulHuman I do that all the time, so thank you for this tip!! I never thought about doing that. I decided to log out of my accounts that remind me of it.

ChristIsKing

Date posted: 2d

Hey ainn! I had this issue after my porn addiction. Had it in my head that I definitely saw something illegal or something along those lines- I found it really useful to simply get rid of the ability to search on my phone and to get rid of apps that allowed me to search things. Really super helpful as it can make a spiral die so much faster Take care 🤍

ainn

Date posted: Yesterday

@ChristIsKing I’m glad to hear that you got through that, that’s a tough thing to get away from. I get what you mean, I worry about the same thing a lot as well. That’d be good for me, so thank you for telling me!

ChristIsKing

Date posted: Yesterday

@ainn Ofc have a wonderful day and good luck

ainn

Date posted: 18h

@ChristIsKing You too!!

ChristIsKing

Date posted: Yesterday

Checking in on you hope you’re doing well

ainn

Date posted: Yesterday

@ChristIsKing Hey! Thanks for checking in on me! How are you? I’m doing better tonight, I took some tips from you and from the comments and it helped! Of course, I fell back a lot and ended up spiraling, but it took a lot of strength to avoid it at the times I did. I’m proud of myself!

ChristIsKing

Date posted: Yesterday

@ainn Wonderful ! It is alright you gotta move someway and sometimes it is indeed backwards but it’s better than not moving. Keep on going I believe in you and you are doing great for working on it !

ainn

Date posted: 18h

@ChristIsKing You’re right!! Thank you so much and to you as well :3

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